Which Thai Industries Keep the Most Companies Active in 2026
In short
Human health and social work keeps 73.89 percent of its registered companies active today, the highest current status share of any industry section as of 17 July 2026. Real estate and water and waste follow at roughly 62 percent each. Households as employers sits at the very bottom with only 9.38 percent active, though that section holds just 32 companies in total. Among sections with real scale, mining and quarrying is the weakest, with only 30.86 percent of its 8,231 companies still active. Nationally, exactly half of the 1,986,709 classified companies carry an active status.
Which industry keeps the most companies active right now?
Human health and social work tops every Thai industry section on current activity, with 73.89 percent of its 17,294 registered companies carrying an active status as of 17 July 2026 (DBD, 2026). Real estate is next at 62.42 percent, water and waste supply follows a hair behind at 62.41 percent, and other services rounds out the top four at 61.80 percent. At the opposite end sits households as employers, where only 9.38 percent of companies are active, though this section counts just 32 registered firms in total, a small enough base that a handful of filings can swing the share. Among sections large enough to trust the number, mining and quarrying is the weakest performer, with only 30.86 percent of its 8,231 companies still active. The national baseline is exactly 50.00 percent, 993,373 active companies out of 1,986,709 companies covered in this section breakdown.
Share of registered companies still active, by industry section
- Human health and social work74
- Real estate62
- Water and waste62
- Other services62
- Electricity and gas60
- Professional, scientific and technical59
- Financial and insurance58
- Accommodation and food service58
- Education58
- Administrative and support57
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing56
- Information and communication55
- Transportation and storage52
- Arts and entertainment49
- Manufacturing47
- Wholesale and retail trade46
- Construction42
- Mining and quarrying31
- Public administration29
- Extraterritorial organizations25
- Households as employers9
Figures in percent active today.
Human health sits well clear of the pack. Households as employers and extraterritorial organizations post the lowest shares of any section, but both carry fewer than 40 registered companies.
Active company share by industry section
| Industry section | Active share | Active companies | Registered companies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Human health and social work | 73.89% | 12,778 | 17,294 |
| Real estate | 62.42% | 93,390 | 149,618 |
| Water and waste | 62.41% | 3,007 | 4,818 |
| Other services | 61.80% | 12,642 | 20,455 |
| Electricity and gas | 60.27% | 4,721 | 7,833 |
| Professional, scientific and technical | 58.51% | 81,315 | 138,982 |
| Financial and insurance | 58.21% | 20,710 | 35,577 |
| Accommodation and food service | 58.09% | 48,564 | 83,608 |
| Education | 57.70% | 8,018 | 13,897 |
| Administrative and support | 56.63% | 57,034 | 100,711 |
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 55.71% | 10,729 | 19,259 |
| Information and communication | 55.25% | 29,027 | 52,537 |
| Transportation and storage | 51.80% | 44,190 | 85,303 |
| Arts and entertainment | 49.07% | 9,072 | 18,486 |
| Manufacturing | 47.34% | 109,063 | 230,396 |
| Wholesale and retail trade | 45.54% | 326,070 | 716,066 |
| Construction | 42.49% | 120,488 | 283,564 |
| Mining and quarrying | 30.86% | 2,540 | 8,231 |
| Public administration | 28.95% | 11 | 38 |
| Extraterritorial organizations | 25.00% | 1 | 4 |
| Households as employers | 9.38% | 3 | 32 |
Active companies as a share of registered companies covered in this section breakdown, all 21 TSIC sections, as of 17 Jul 2026.
Why the small sections matter to the story
Most rankings of this kind stop at the eighteen sections with real company counts, and if you do the same here the spread runs from human health at 73.89 percent down to mining and quarrying at 30.86 percent, a gap of 43.03 points. That is the standard picture. Counting every section on the register changes the shape of the story. Public administration, extraterritorial organizations and households as employers each hold fewer than 40 companies, a sliver next to wholesale and retail trade's 716,066. But they are real registrations, and their active shares of 28.95 percent, 25.00 percent and 9.38 percent respectively stretch the true range to 64.51 points between the top and bottom sections. That is 21.48 points wider than the range the standard eighteen-section view shows. Treat the three smallest sections as a curiosity rather than a trend. A base of 32 or fewer companies means one reactivation or one deregistration moves the percentage by three points or more.
Why this matters
Active status is a snapshot, not a life history. It tells you what share of a section's companies are on the register as live today, which is a different question from how long a typical company in that section survives after founding. Health and real estate hold their companies active because ongoing licensing, recurring service contracts and long asset holding periods give owners a reason to keep a registration current. Mining and quarrying churns fastest among the large sections because project based operators wind down once a concession or contract ends. Wholesale and retail trade, the single biggest section at 716,066 companies, sits below the national line at 45.54 percent, which means the modal Thai company you would encounter in trade is more likely dormant than active. For anyone screening a supplier, a tenant or a counterparty by sector, that base rate is worth knowing before the individual paperwork is checked. Thailand's broader business dynamism has drawn scrutiny elsewhere too. Nearly 24,000 small and medium enterprises deregistered in 2024 alone, a pace the World Bank has flagged as a drag on the country's private sector churn (World Bank, 2025).
Definitions
- Active share
- The count of companies with an active registration status in a section, divided by all companies in that section with a classified industry code. A 60 percent active share means six of every ten registered companies in that section are active today.
- Active company
- A company whose registration status on the DBD register is currently active, as opposed to dormant, defunct or struck off.
- Current status measure
- A snapshot of registration status taken at one point in time, as distinct from a cohort survival rate that follows a group of companies founded together over multiple years.
- Industry section
- One of the 21 top level groupings in the Thailand Standard Industrial Classification, such as manufacturing, construction or human health, used to sort every registered company.
- Percentage points
- The plain arithmetic difference between two percentages. The gap from 73.89 percent to 9.38 percent is 64.51 points, not a percent change.
Assumptions
- Active status reflects registration status on the register, not whether a company is trading, hiring or filing revenue.
- Households as employers, extraterritorial organizations and public administration each carry fewer than 40 registered companies, so their active shares move sharply with a single filing and should be read as descriptive curiosities rather than stable trends.
- Companies never assigned an industry section are excluded from section level shares but do not materially affect the national total.
- This is a point in time snapshot as of 17 July 2026 and does not track when or why an individual company's status last changed.
Methodology
Active share is the count of companies with an active registration status in a TSIC industry section divided by all companies in that section with a classified industry code, drawn from the Department of Business Development registry via Max Data's aggregate tables as of 17 July 2026. Section totals are built by summing active and inactive counts across every 5 digit TSIC industry code within each of the 21 lettered ISIC sections. This is a point in time current status measure, distinct from a cohort based survival curve that tracks a group of companies founded in the same year over time. Companies never assigned an industry section are excluded from section shares but are not material to the national total.
How we verified this
- Human health and social work active share recomputed as 12,778 divided by 17,294, which equals 73.89 percent, the maximum across all 21 sections.
- Households as employers active share recomputed as 3 divided by 32, which equals 9.38 percent, the minimum across all 21 sections.
- Gap across all 21 sections recomputed as 73.89 minus 9.38, which equals 64.51 percentage points.
- Gap across the 18 sections with over 1,000 companies recomputed as 73.89 minus 30.86 for mining and quarrying, which equals 43.03 percentage points, confirming the full register gap is 21.48 points wider.
- National active share recomputed as 993,373 divided by 1,986,709, which equals 50.00 percent, matching the sum of active counts across all 21 sections in the underlying table.
- Section entity counts summed to 1,986,709 and active counts summed to 993,373, confirming no section was double counted or dropped.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons by status and industry section. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- World Bank. (2025). Thailand economic monitor, February 2025: Unleashing growth, innovation, SMEs and startups. World Bank Group. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/thailand/publication/thailand-economic-monitor-february-2025-unleashing-growth-innovation-smes-and-startups
Frequently asked questions
Which Thai industry has the highest share of currently active companies?
Human health and social work, at 73.89 percent active as of 17 July 2026, the highest of the 21 TSIC industry sections.
Which industry has the lowest share of active companies?
Households as employers, at 9.38 percent, though that section has only 32 registered companies in total, so the figure rests on a very small base.
Which large industry has the lowest active share?
Mining and quarrying, at 30.86 percent active among its 8,231 companies, the weakest showing of any section with more than a thousand registrations.
Is this the same as a company survival rate?
No. This measures current registration status for every company on the register today. A cohort survival rate instead tracks companies founded in the same year and follows how many remain active over time.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Which Thai Industries Keep the Most Companies Active in 2026. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/which-thai-industries-keep-the-most-companies-active-2026
Data & corrections
Download the data (CSV)Spot something off, or want to ask about the data? Email insights@maxsolutions.co.th. We publish corrections.
Written by
Chatpong L.Founder, Max Data, Max Solutions Co., Ltd.
Chatpong L. leads Max Data, a company-intelligence platform built on Thailand's official business registry. He writes about the structure of the Thai economy using primary registry data. His work covers company formation, industry concentration, and regional business activity.
Related insights
This page reports company-level and aggregate statistics only. It names no individuals and makes no claims about any person. Figures are provided for information and may be revised as source data updates.